


reckless and not intentional; totally unacceptable

by orphan_account, Prop_Logic



Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prop_Logic/pseuds/Prop_Logic
Summary: He cannot look at what he has done, cannot bear to see the awful consequences, and the fact that it was an accident, that he is already so desperately sorry, surely means nothing in the face of all it has wrought.The aftermath of Saturday's incident.
Relationships: Jamie George/Owen Farrell
Comments: 5
Kudos: 3





	reckless and not intentional; totally unacceptable

**Author's Note:**

> First off, obviously the main thing to take away from what happened is that Charlie Atkinson is looking like he's going to be fine, which is great. Beyond that, I'm not impressed by the level of vitriol aimed at Owen Farrell over the tackle - yes, it was an awful hit and deserved the red card, but that's no reason to attack _him_. Of course, I'm probably preaching to the choir here; I just wanted to get that off my chest. (Oh, and the ban is completely reasonable and of normal length in the current disciplinary system, and if anyone hasn't been able to find the explanations as to why, I would genuinely be happy to run through the reasons for each bit of the report. But, again, I'm guessing that's not going to be a major point of contention on here.) I'd also really recommend The Good, The Bad and The Rugby for a good breakdown of the tackle and everything around it - you can find it on YouTube or as a podcast.
> 
> Anyway, look at me posting a work on here again, and so soon after my last... I might even have another one coming along, which is kind of related to my last, but no *definite* promises. As for this fic, it was kind of in my head from Saturday, but then on Monday I saw the highlights and didn't feel like I could *not* write this, so here we are. 
> 
> On a separate note, I'm really impressed by how strong the shirts are. Like, the shoulders of Owen's shirt look like they're taking most of his weight for a bit when Mike Rhodes pulls him up, and they are not giving way under ~942N - though I guess that's not exactly considering the stress, as the area covered could account for the lack of tear, but I'm not sure exactly what would constitute the area in that context even if I did have some way of measuring it, so I guess there won't be any calculations on that front (and no, I'm not going to try and rip my own shirt).

_The kick goes up. Owen does not take the time to watch the trajectory, just gets his head down and accelerates for the chase. He comes up past his teammates, watching the Wasps player who has caught the ball closely and tracking the man’s movements across the pitch. There could be danger here if someone does not stop this run –_

_Someone needs to stop the run –_

_He_ knows _the second he makes contact. Of course he does. He knows before, even, in the terrifying beat before his arm makes contact with the other man’s – the_ boy _’s – head, but it is too late and there is no way to stop the events that unfold before him. This tackle is bad, is dangerous, is nothing that Owen could ever have intended, and the world seems to slow down as the force jars his shoulder, but even that does nothing to disguise the horrible speed of it –_

_He is on the ground, now, ears ringing with shouts and whistles and the sickening knowledge that something is_ wrong _. There is a dread crawling up his throat, and all the apologies that could have spilled past his lips if his mouth would just_ move _will not be enough to fix this. Something is just too wrong, and_ he _was just a kid, and now –_

_He cannot look at what he has done, cannot bear to see the awful consequences, and the fact that it was an accident, that he is already so desperately sorry, surely means nothing in the face of all it has wrought. Something is worse than it should be_ (than what was) _, and he knows exactly what has happened, even though logically he should have no more idea than anyone else. Apologies will never be enough for this, for that kid lying limp on the turf, and –_

Owen bursts upright, gasping for breath as his eyes sting with tears. For a moment, he wonders distantly if he might actually be about to cry for the first time in he-does-not-know-how-long, but then he blinks and breathes and brings himself back to Earth.

_Just a dream_.

It felt real. It still feels real. He knows, logically, that the kid – Atkinson – is up and about if not _entirely_ fine; he apologised to the lad himself, spoke to him properly right afterwards. That does not change the fact that for those heart-stopping moments right after the tackle, he did not _know_ that would be the result, and the fear that gripped him had burned hot and fierce. The kid is alright, but he could not have been, and there would be no going back for Owen.

With shaking hands, he shoves the duvet away from him and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He considers, for a moment, the urge to stand and see if the agitation crawling through him can be left behind but, even as he plants his hands on the mattress to push himself up, he changes his mind. Instead, he hunches over and buries his face in his palms, hiding himself away from the world and the frightening possibilities it holds.

There is no use thinking in ‘what if’s, and he is not the sort to entertain them often. In this moment, they seem unshakeable.

He wishes someone had hit him at the time. He wishes the Ref hadn’t been there, because now he has been left waiting for his comeuppance, unable to settle or accept what has happened. He needed that punch, that punishment, for the balance it might have brought to the situation. Even if his own teammates had shouted at him, had exposed him to the full anger of the loss and pinned all the blame on him for a time, that might have been better than the quiet frustration and almost cautious acknowledgements of ‘It was bad, Faz…’ as if he doesn’t _know that_ –

“Owen?”

Owen almost flinches from the hand that settles on his back, but his husband’s voice soothes a small fraction of whatever it is that crackles inside him at the moment – just enough to steady his limbs.

“What’s up?” Jamie asks, though the soft caution in his voice gives Owen the distinct impression that Jamie has a good idea of the problem already.

“That tackle,” he mutters all the same, hoarse as he scrubs at his eyes before balling his hands into fists. “Just – A dream, is all.”

“The tackle, but also a dream,” Jamie reiterates behind him. “Tell me you weren’t dreaming _about_ the tackle…?”

Instantly defensive, Owen shrugs. ‘Nightmare’ might be more accurate, in hindsight, but he doesn’t feel as though he deserves to acknowledge his own distress over the situation at the moment. However little he meant it, that tackle was all on him – and he can only be desperately grateful that the consequences weren’t worse.

“Faz…” Jamie sighs.

“It was bad,” Owen mutters, more to his hands than to his best friend. “I know it was bad.”

He said as much to the Ref. He said it to anyone who would listen. If the result had been worse, though, saying it wouldn’t have changed a thing any more than it changed what actually happened.

Does ‘bad’ even encapsulate it? He doesn’t know. Atkinson is up, walking, talking, but he can hardly measure the quality – or lack thereof – or the danger level of the tackle based solely on the consequences.

“Owen, you need to switch off for a bit,” Jamie tries, the mattress dipping as he shuffles over to sit next to Owen.

Owen ignores his husband, even as the bedside lamp flicks on.

“It was terrible,” he announces, again to his hands, and wonders if that might be enough.

Jamie mutters something unintelligible at his side.

“If I tell you what I think about all this, will you switch off and stop obsessing over this for the night?”

Lifting his thumb, Owen chews anxiously at the nail. _Atkinson is up and talking_ , he reminds himself, wondering faintly how many more times he will end up repeating that for the next day, week, month…

(And he let the team down.)

“Someone should’ve punched me,” he mumbles, and he didn’t intend to say that aloud; _that_ , he doesn’t entirely mean, as much as he still wishes that there was _something_ to balance it all out. “Jinx, it was –”

“It was a terrible tackle,” Jamie tells him flatly. “Absolutely shocking. It might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen you do, on or off the pitch. You let yourself down, the team down, and you nearly took that poor kid’s head off. You could well be lucky that he’s doing as well as he is.”

Owen knows all of that, but he still has to remind himself to breathe after hearing _Jamie_ , of all people, give voice to it. It is one thing to know it in his own head, and another to hear someone he trusts say it aloud.

“ _But_ ,” Jamie emphasises, “Atkinson’s doing alright, you didn’t mean it, and that was far from the only reason we lost today. You can work on your tackling, and we both know you will. You’ve apologised. You’ll get your – what? Ten week ban? Maybe halved to five – or six to three if we’re lucky. And that’ll be punishment enough. There’s absolutely no need for you to be torturing yourself over it in the meantime.”

It is almost enough. To have Jamie tell him all this, break down the events so ruthlessly and lay them bare fact by fact – it is almost what he needs to put it to bed. He loves Jamie, trusts him and cares about his opinion, and in most other circumstances, this would be the end of the conversation.

Gnawing at the knuckle of his index finger, he struggles for any kind of response.

“You’re looking for some kind of reckoning, aren’t you?” Jamie asks, his exhaustion clear in his voice. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

Owen is fairly sure that his husband already knows the answer to that. He cannot simply put off the fact that he made a mistake like that for several hours, particularly not after that dream. The terrifying rush of adrenaline and desperate fear, the image of that kid on the ground, the knowledge of the error he’d made – every little detail of those moments, the immediate fallout, is clear in his head right now.

Groaning, Jamie rubs at his eyes.

“Go sleep on the couch,” he tells Owen. “Alright? Unless you think that’d risk an injury, go sleep on the couch tonight, and we’ll talk about it more in the morning – but you’d better _sleep_ in the meantime.”

The lamp flicks off as Owen leaves the room in grateful quietude. The rest of the house is dark and silent, detached from the vivid reality of the nightmare, and he knows that spending the rest of the night on the couch will be uncomfortable – and will likely leave him with worsened aches tomorrow.

It is, he thinks as he steps gingerly down the stairs, exactly what he needs.

Still, atoning wouldn’t have fixed anything if the result had been worse, and it doesn’t fix anything now. It doesn’t change the fact that the kid failed his HIA, that Owen knocked him out; as much as it is how rugby can be sometimes, Owen feels _bad_ about it. There are few times he has ever felt so guilty about how an action on the pitch has affected an opposition player.

As he steps off the stairs, he is struck by the vivid memory of turning his head and realising that Atkinson wasn’t getting up – was just lying prone on the turf, unmoving. There was horrible fear in that moment, in the realisation of what he had done and in the worry over the lad. If Atkinson hadn’t got up, hadn’t walked off the pitch and managed to respond when Owen apologised…

Owen doesn’t know if he would ever have forgiven himself.

In the end, it takes an unknown stretch of time, lying awake in the darkness of the living room and feeling his limbs start to stiffen in the uncomfortable position he has settled them in, to drift off to sleep. He must manage it at some point, although his last memories are of the same grim thoughts cycling through his head, because eventually he opens his eyes to find the room much brighter than he remembers it being, the deep ache in his back when he moves to sit up making it clear that his body does not appreciate last night’s sleeping arrangements. _Good_.

Less good is the general feeling of groggy sluggishness that accompanies the reminder of his poor night’s rest. He never functions well without the right amount of high-quality sleep – which normally isn’t a problem – and there will be no more chance of a nap today than there ever is. (Sometimes, he envies those teammates of his who have no trouble with drifting off for twenty to ninety minutes in the middle of the day, but the way he works is the way he works, and he has long since grown accustomed to it. It is one thing he doesn’t see the need to change – unlike his _tackling decision-making_.)

_Fuck_ , he hopes Atkinson is still doing alright. There isn’t exactly much chance of the lad’s condition getting worse this long after the incident, but that is hardly enough to stop Owen from worrying.

He spends a good half hour sitting hunched on the couch, chewing at his thumbnail and fretting in silence, before Jamie comes downstairs.

“Feel better?” his husband asks quietly from the doorway, then seems to regret his choice of words, pulling a face before shrugging.

“A bit,” Owen assures him; despite the aches that have formed overnight, it is true.

Still, it is clearly not as positive a response as Jamie was hoping for.

“You want to talk about it?” comes the gentle offer.

Rugby is normally the one subject that it can actually be difficult to get Owen to shut up on. He knows it well enough – would be hard-pressed not to, when everyone else seems to be more than happy to reiterate the fact. Now, however, he finds himself unable to come up with anything to say on his current struggles besides, “It was bad.”

For several seconds, silence drifts through the room, before Jamie seems to realise that there is nothing else Owen wants to voice.

“Alright,” is accompanied by a quiet sigh. “Yeah, it was. I said it yesterday – or, fuck, it might have been earlier this morning. _Everyone and their gran_ knows you feel bad about it, though.”

Owen does not even need to look at Twitter to know that _that_ cannot be remotely true.

“Alright, anyone who knows anything knows you feel bad about it,” Jamie amends. “But you’ve made the mistake, you’ve had _far_ more than two seconds to beat yourself up over it. Time to move on and focus on sorting it out. Yeah?”

That sounds ideal, Owen supposes, but he still can’t shake the image of Atkinson on the turf.

“ _Yes_?” Jamie presses, forceful. “Owen Andrew Farrell, you are literally the _last player on Earth_ I’d expect to see letting his own mental state get the better of him. You’ve paid your price for now, you’ll have your ban in a few days, and that’s that. You need to stop wallowing in this, take control of your own… psyche or whatever, and move on.”

Chastened, Owen chances a glance in Jamie’s direction, earning a pointedly raised eyebrow when he meets his husband’s gaze.

“That’s… fair,” he admits, grudging but grateful, and Jamie snorts.

“’Course it is, mate – I said it.”

“I take it back,” Owen counters at once. “You’re right – you said it. It must be wrong.”

“That is _not_ how it works –”

“And as you’ve said that, too, that must be how it works,” Owen adds, triumphant, and finally manages a grin – probably his first smile since the incident yesterday.

“Alright, then…” Jamie trails off, considering. “The North isn’t a shithole.”

Owen opens his mouth, closes it, and racks his brain for a way around that one.

“That’s what I thought,” Jamie prods. “We’ll have a bit less cheek from you, then.”

“You want my dad to know you’ve been giving his hometown shit?” Owen demands, Jamie rolling his eyes at once. “Or my _mum_?”

That seems to stump Jamie.

“Now, there’s no need for that, love…”

Satisfied, Owen settles back against the couch. Normally, the fact that Jamie gets on _horrifically_ well with his parents is more an irritation than anything – Owen is terrified to leave them alone, lest they forget that any embarrassing stories they have of him, he can probably match with one of them – but occasionally it has its perks.

“Alright, well, when your smug arse is up for it, I’m more than ready for breakfast,” Jamie grumbles, turning for the door.

For a moment, Owen hesitates, watching his husband’s retreating form, then hunger wins out and he pushes himself off the couch. Maybe he could message Atkinson or one of the older Wasps lads and just check that the kid is alright. That might be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I almost see an element of Dom/sub while proof-reading this? Yes. Am I trying to pretend that I'm not tempted to just go ahead and write that particularly AU and, furthermore, do I intend to pretend that this is definitely, one-hundred percent, no-questions-about-it vanilla? Yes. Am I semi-deliberately undermining that by adding this at the end...?
> 
> I'm sensing a pattern in these answers.


End file.
